The Council of Nicaea repudiated the ontotheological trajectory of the Ante-Nicene tradition. There are a number of theories about the origins and aims of the Arian heresy.1 But perhaps the most cogent way of reading it is simply as the Subordinationist heresy taken to its logical conclusion. Origen, and others within the Ante-Nicene tradition, thought more in terms of the Hellenistic concept of being and degrees of being. As a result, Greek philosophy supplanted the biblical paradigm of creator/creature and then removed God from the system of being. The Greek paradigm also deemphasized the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. Without the strict division of creator/creature, Hellenized Ante-Nicene theologians fit the Second Person of the Trinity into a continuum of degrees of being, with the Father at the top and nothingness at the bottom.
Arianism and Its Rejection
Based on indirect evidence regarding the nature of the Arian heresy, it can be said that much to his credit Arius recognized the importance of the biblical distinction between creator/creature more seriously than his Origenist predecessors in the Church of Alexandria.2 Nevertheless, like Origen, Arius saw the second person of the Trinity as part of the hierarchy of being. If God as creator is outside the hierarchy of being (in that he is ingenerate), then it logically followed that as generated Christ must be part of the hierarchy of being. Consequently, Arius reasoned that Christ must be on the creaturely side of the creator/creature division.3
Continue reading “Post-Nicaea Rejection of Onto-Theology: Part I”